The

Mortal Heart

Beautiful Creatures:

The Untold Stories

by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl



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Table of Contents

About the Authors

Copyright Page

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Authors’ Note

The whole idea behind Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories was for the two of us to tell
the stories we never had a chance to write in the Beautiful Creatures novels. These stories are
our opportunity to answer the questions we’re asked most often by our readers, like: How did
Lila fall in love with Macon? Why did Amma come to take care of Ethan? What is life like in
Gatlin now? And we’re writing them for our pleasure as much as for yours.
The truth is, Ethan and Lena, John and Liv, Macon and Lila, Amma and Marian, Link and
Ridley—not to mention the entire Wate, Ravenwood, and Duchannes families—they’re our
families, too. Gatlin is our hometown as much as it’s the home of our characters, and our
readers. When we’re not there we miss it, as we imagine (if you’re reading this) you do.
So read on. You can follow any of these stories without reading the others in the series.
However, for our most committed readers (and honorary Casters), if you read all the stories,
you’ll discover more than a few things you didn’t know about your favorite Mortals and
Casters.
We look forward to sharing the next story with you and talking about all of them with you
online. See you soon in the Gatlin County Library!
Love,
Kami & Margie
For all the Casters and Outcasters who love Gatlin as much as we do, this story is for you.

All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.
—André Breton

I. Sunday in the Gatlin County Library

No time in the world passed slower than a Sunday at the Gatlin County Library. On
Sundays, it seemed as if the whole town had better things to do than read a book. But Marian
knew most folks in Gatlin never read anything but the Bible if they could help it.
At least my special deliveries keep me busy from Monday to Saturday, Marian thought,
wrapping the next week’s illicit book deliveries in brown paper. She addressed this particular
wrapped copy of The Beast and the Bodice to Mrs. Lincoln and put her Sharpie back in the
drawer. Illicit by Gatlin standards could mean anything from a romance novel to Carl Sagan’s
astronomy text, Cosmos. “Who is this fella Carl to be tellin’ folks that the Big Boom created
the world, instead a the Good Lord Almighty?” Aunt Mercy, one of the Sisters, had asked
Marian. It was the sort of question that took as long to answer as reading the book itself.
Common sense is not so common, as Voltaire would say. Marian shook her head as she
unlocked the door to her private archive behind the checkout desk. That’s what life in Gatlin
teaches you: The bar is low. For Casters and for Mortals alike.
Caster librarians, like Marian, preferred things quiet. Quiet meant no worlds were ending,
no universes were crumbling, no Casters were being Claimed for Light or Dark. No
supernatural judgments were being handed down from the Far Keep, and no Keepers were
losing their jobs. All of which Marian had survived in the past.
She had started making tea but stopped and shivered at the thought of it—the chaos, the
panic, the destruction.… Marian had spent more time trying not to remember the details of
the past few years than she cared to admit.
Now things were finally different. The biggest problems in Gatlin County were pedestrian
happenings, like boy-crazy Thaumaturge Ryan Duchannes using her powers to break and heal
hearts at Gatlin’s junior high, or Incubus-turned-Caster Macon Ravenwood tracking the
location of every Ravenwood on the eastern seaboard while refusing to say why. Aside from
these blips on her otherwise quiet Keeper radar, Marian tried to stop and appreciate the
gentler pace of a librarian’s life every chance she could.
But today it felt like the old Simplex wall clock’s hands were conspiring against her, and
she waited impatiently over a pot of Earl Grey French Blue Mariage Frères tea. It was her
good tea, loose-leaf and still in the tin Olivia Durand had hand-carried back from Paris; Marian
generally saved it for holidays or occasions when she knew Ethan Wate’s Volvo would be
pulling into her cracked asphalt parking lot. Which should be any minute now.
That old clock has to be wrong. Marian double-checked the mother-of-pearl face on the
thin, silver-strapped watch her best friend, Lila Wate, had given her. Seems like seven
thousand years ago. At least two lifetimes.
Marian pulled out a Tupperware container of homemade lilac shortbread, sliding one
piece onto each of the three mismatched saucers she’d set out on her desk in the archive. At
least she knew how to roll out a decent cookie. She wished the same could be said of Lilian
English’s biscuits, her chicken, her pies, or even her chili-ghetti. Taking over the cooking in
Amma’s kitchen wouldn’t be easy for anyone, let alone Mitchell Wate’s future bride. Still,
Marian had been relieved when she wasn’t invited to one of Mitchell and Lilian’s subpar
chicken and biscuit dinners. Now that the engagement was official, there were more than a
few tiers of relatives who had to be rotated in and out before the couple tied the knot next
summer. Anyway, Marian knew that Ethan would make the time to see her on his way out of
town—and she wasn’t surprised when the bell on the library door jingled.
“Aunt Marian?” Ethan bounded through the door, with Lena right behind him.
“Ethan—”
A hug was the first order of business, long and more articulate than anything they could
possibly say to each other in words.
Marian pulled back to take a good look. “Let me see you.”
There he was, her boy. The closest thing she’d ever had to a son. Ethan looked good, if a
bit older, in a raggedy sweater and ripped jeans. “You’ve grown some.” Her mouth twisted into
a smile.
College kids, she thought. Amma probably can’t stand to check in on him anymore from
the Otherworld, with him dressed like this.
“Have I?” Ethan left a hand on Marian’s shoulder. “Because I was starting to think you
were shrinking.”
Marian swatted him away, reaching for Lena, who was standing behind Ethan. Macon’s
child—that was how Marian always thought of Lena. The girl was never more than a few feet
away from Lila’s son, and she looked radiant—how she always looked when Ethan was nearby.
That’s how those two are whenever they’re together. Glowing like a string of lights on a
Christmas tree. It almost makes you believe love can work out for a person.
Almost.
Ever since Ethan had returned from the Otherworld, he and Lena were as together as two
people could be. “I can’t explain it,” Ethan had told Marian once. “Except that I know what I
lost, and I don’t want to lose it again. Not even for a minute.”
Marian had understood what he meant the moment he’d said it. She’d felt the same way
when Ethan stepped off the water tower.…
When he died.
Only Marian, Amma, and a few Casters knew the truth about what had happened to Ethan
—that he hadn’t gone to visit his aunt in Savannah when he disappeared. It still haunted her.
All her knowledge as a Keeper and all the books in the Lunae Libri had been useless.
I was useless.
Lila was the one who had set Ethan on the right path in the Otherworld, and Lena
overturned Heaven and Earth to help him find his way home again. But Amma was the one
who gave her own life to make sure he stayed.
 I should have been able to do more. Marian shook off the thought. Ethan was here now,
safe and happy.
“Why, Lena Duchannes, is that a color you’re wearing?” Marian touched the ratty sleeve of
Lena’s sweater, woven with as many colors as Joseph’s proverbial coat, and with about as
many loose strings.
“I knit it myself,” Lena said proudly. “During my classes.”
“Her gramma taught her,” Ethan said, with his mouth full. He opened Marian’s box of
shortbread cookies and helped himself to the remaining stash.
“I can tell,” Marian said, ignoring him. “How are my old friends Dante, Shakespeare, and
Virgil? And, of course, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf?”
Lena put down her cup. “They send their love. Also, they might want me to borrow your
library’s copy of To the Lighthouse—or at least to read the notes in the margins. I’m working
on a paper, and I remember writing some good ideas in your copy, back in high school.”
Marian raised a stern eyebrow at the thought of anyone writing in her books—even Lena
Duchannes—but pointed to the back of the stacks. “That way. And we will never speak of this
again.”
“Aunt Marian,” Ethan began the moment Lena was gone. “I want to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“It’s about my mom. When I saw her over there—”
“I can’t begin to imagine,” Marian said.
“Mom told me she had loved Macon but that she had also loved my dad. I’ve been thinking
about it a lot, now that Dad is engaged to Mrs. English and everything.”
“Your father is happy.” It wasn’t a question. Everyone knew that the Mitchell Wate who
became a ghost when his wife died had come back from the dead; fewer folks knew it was
around the same time that his son had, as well.
“He is, and I want him to be. My mom thinks so, too. At least that’s what she said, when I
—you know—saw her.”
“So what’s the question?” Marian asked.
“It’s about love, and how you know which kind it is. I mean, how do you know if it’s what
my dad and mom had, or what my mom and Macon had? Because sometimes I think Macon
haunts her in a way that my dad never will. And if that’s true, I don’t understand why they
couldn’t find a way to stay together. Not that I wish they had. It’s just… how can I keep that
from happening to Lena and me?” His face turned red, and his eyes lingered in the direction
where Lena had gone.
Marian studied his face over her teacup. “Why does it matter now?”
“I can’t ask Dad, and Mom isn’t here. The closer this wedding stuff gets, the more it
makes me think about Lena and me, and the more I want to know—how can you tell if it’s a
forever thing?” He put down the cookies. “You were there, Aunt Marian. What happened with
Macon and my mom? I know from the visions that Macon was scared he’d hurt her after he
Transitioned, but if he really loved her, wouldn’t he have figured out a way?”
Marian set down her teacup, so hard that her saucer rattled. “I was there, and he loved
her. Your mother was twenty-one years old and the most beautiful thing in either Carolina.
Your father wasn’t even a thought in the back of her mind yet.”
“But Macon was?”
“And he was as dark and troubled and handsome and brilliant as you would expect. Almost
as smart as your mother.”
Ethan nodded. “I can picture it. I mean them. Together.”
Marian shook her head. “You can’t. No one could. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’ve ever seen
since the two of them.” It wasn’t exactly true, of course.
Not until now. Not until you and Lena, she thought.
“But even before your mother met Macon, she had to meet the Caster world. And she
didn’t meet it through him.”
Ethan looked at Marian with dark eyes and an even darker understanding. “She met it
through you.”
Marian raised her chin. “Your mother was my best friend, and it wasn’t a secret I could
keep from her. Not for long.”
Even if it killed her, she thought. Even if it broke her heart and took everyone she loved
from her. Even if it’s all my fault, and that’s something I have to live with, every day of my life.
“Tell me what happened,” Lila’s son said.
So Lila’s best friend did.
II. Sunday in the Rare Books Library

Thirty Years Earlier: Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
“In the Light there is Dark, and in the Dark there is Light,” Lila Jane Evers translated,
holding the translucent scrap of parchment, no thicker than onionskin, between her fingertips.
“Licentia in Lux Lucis. Freedom in Light.”
But freedom from what?
Lila Jane sat back in her hard wooden chair—at her customary table for one—in the rare
documents reading room in the Perkins Library. She didn’t have time for this. It was close to
the end of the term, and she was halfway through the final paper for her American Belief
Systems seminar. She’d already pieced together three Latin passages from a prayer book said
to have arrived in the New World with the original Winthrop fleet of the 1600s.
The page in front of her now was more difficult to place. Lila Jane chewed on her pencil,
absentmindedly twisting her long brown hair into a half-knot on top of her head. She was no
closer to uncovering the meaning of the mysterious lines than she had been yesterday, or the
day before or the day before that. She traced the nineteenth-century script with a single
white-gloved finger. The gloves were a requirement when working in the rare books library,
but she loved them. They were respectful and glamorous, a sign of deference and humility.
The past was to be honored. History was to be teased out and puzzled over. Understanding
was a triumph—something no one outside this room seemed to understand.
Which was why Lila Jane Evers, possibly the most beautiful girl in North Carolina,
certainly the most beautiful girl on the campus of Duke University (once nominated the
Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, to her own embarrassment), only dated men who had first set foot
inside the rare books library—which dramatically reduced her options.
That was fine with her.
She sighed, slid the paper back into the folder, and returned it to the librarian at the desk,
who also happened to be her roommate and best friend in the world. Lila Jane had used
Marian’s keys at the library more often than her friend knew. Lila Jane was nothing if not
singular in pursuit of her passions, and this nineteenth-century American verse—discovered in
one of South Carolina’s oldest plantation houses—was a mystery she intended to solve.
“No luck, Janie?” Marian asked, already pulling on her jacket. She never called her best
friend Lila, not when Lila Jane allowed for so many variations. Lila Jane was the best friend
Marian had always dreamed of having but had never found. Lila Jane was every bit as serious
as Marian, if a bit harder to predict. If Marian wanted to do well in school, Lila Jane wanted to
understand the heart of the entire universe. If Marian wanted to debate Kafka over coffee, Lila
Jane wanted to actually metamorphose.
“No luck, Mare. Not today,” Lila Jane said.
“Tomorrow’s going to be your lucky day,” Marian said. “I can feel it.”
“You can? Then I guess I’ll see you here tomorrow. I’m going to go brush up on a little
Latin before I leave tonight.”
“Please, Janie. Just come to the Sunday Salon with me. You’ll have fun.”
“Okay, first, I would never go to anything called a salon. And second, you know I never
have fun when I’m supposed to. It’s one of my defining characteristics.”
Marian nudged her best friend. “It’s at our apartment. You can’t hide.”
“Yes, I can. That’s why they invented Latin.”
Lila Jane grabbed her battered leather satchel and navy peacoat, taking off before Marian
could say another word. The coat was comforting, and as soon as she slipped it on she felt
better. It was a man’s coat, but Lila Jane had bought it anyway because she loved the
enormous pockets. She was always finding some strange object and hiding it inside one of
them. Marian joked that she was curating a rare old collection of her own inside that jacket.
Lila Jane didn’t care what anyone said—another of her defining characteristics.
As Lila Jane left the rare books library, she felt the eyes on her back.
One pair in particular.
She cut sharply to her right and ducked through the door that led to the stacks, before
anyone could follow.

Three hours later, Lila Jane regretted her decision to stay at the library. She was definitely
being followed. She glanced out the window from her spot in the stacks again, but the moon
was hardly a sliver in the wash of an inky sky.
She tossed her papers into her bag and hit the stairs. She hadn’t taken ten steps into the
dim shadows of the stairwell when she heard the quiet footsteps behind her. And felt the eyes
settle on her back.
Lila Jane shot out of the stairwell and into the main library lobby. Empty. Of course. She
stopped just inside the entrance and tried to think.
She imagined the whole walk home. Across the quad, through the leafless trees, around
the corner, and up the street, almost all the way to her apartment. Marian would be waiting.
Their kitchen (which always smelled like burnt coffee) and their tiny living room would be full
of pompous, beret-wearing lit majors drinking absinthe, smoking French cigarettes, and
talking about the gaze—things Lila Jane normally hated.
Now she desperately wished she was there.
Behind her, the footsteps grew louder and then stopped.
She moved her fingers to the handle of the library’s front door. Outside, the quad and the
streets were dark and deserted—the perfect place to grab a girl walking alone.
Please let me make it to the apartment. I haven’t been to Paris, London, Rome, or New
York City. I haven’t seen the White House or the Capitol. I haven’t even fallen in love.
She listened. The silence unnerved her. Then it irritated her, and she took her hand off the
door.
“I know you’re following me.” Her words echoed against the glass in front of her, though
they were meant for the owner of the footsteps behind her. “I have Mace.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” The low voice belonged to a man, but there was nothing menacing
about his tone. It almost sounded as if he was amused.
Unfortunately, Lila Jane wasn’t. “Did you think I was too stupid to notice you were
following me?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.” Now he really did sound as if he was trying not to laugh. “I
think you might be the smartest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of not meeting.” His words
had become warm and low, almost conspiratorial. “Yet.”
Lila Jane slowly turned around.
The boy—or man, depending on your definition—in front of her was tall and lanky, with
dark hair and even darker eyes. His oxford shirt was finely stitched, and his pants looked
unusually well cut beneath the dark overcoat flapping open at his sides. She tried to piece the
resulting picture together, but it wasn’t a familiar one. Lila Jane had never seen a boy like him
at Duke, or anywhere else.
He doesn’t look like a murderer. But you never know.
Either way, he was still rude to follow her through the entire library without saying a word
until now.
Rude, or very strange.
Lila Jane frowned. “I’m Lila. So now you’ve met me. Can you leave me alone?”
He tilted his head, watching her. His eyes were even darker than his hair, but his skin was
pale, almost translucent. “If your name is Lila, why does your friend from the library call you
Janie?”
The longer Lila Jane stared at him, the more she realized he looked like someone who
never left the library. Had she seen him there?
“You mean Marian? She calls me all sorts of things,” she explained as if they were friends.
“My middle name is Jane. Lila Jane.”
Why do I feel like I have to explain myself to him? she thought, her cheeks flushing.
“Like Jane Eyre. It suits you.”
For some reason she wanted to tell him that Jane Eyre was her mother’s favorite novel,
and Jane her favorite literary heroine. Instead she asked him a question. “And you are?”
His mouth turned up at the corners. “Charmed.”
Lila Jane crossed her arms. “And rude. And you could be a murderer, for all I know.”
“A murderer? Is that what you thought?” The hint of a smile faded, and he shoved his
hands into the pockets of his coat. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Actually, I want to help you.”
She must have looked as confused as she felt, because he added, “With the Licentia in Lux
Lucis.”
Lila Jane froze. He was referring to her parchment—the mystery that had consumed her
for the past week. “What about it?”
“It’s not a poem. It’s a—it’s a kind of spell.”
“A spell? You’re serious?” She stared at him. He looked serious, but she couldn’t be sure.
He shrugged. “You took Fliegelman’s Text and Context seminar, didn’t you? I was in it, too.
Back row.”
“I never saw you there.” She smiled. “But, you know. Front row.”
He looked at the ground. “I know. And I’m sort of an expert at not being seen, with
tonight’s rare exception.”
“Go on.”
“Remember the week Fliegelman lectured on performative language? Incantations, spells,
speaking in tongues?”
“Yes. Your basic “Madwomen in the Attic” syllabus week. I remember.”
“That’s when I figured it out. I’m not saying the Lux Lucis works as a magic spell—”
She laughed. “Of course not. That would be ridiculous.”
His eyes stayed locked on hers, steady through the dim light. “Yes. Of course. Ridiculous.”
Then he smiled. “What I am saying is that’s the reason it was conceived.”
 She frowned. “The Lux? A spell? How do you know that?”
“Because I think I’ve found the rest of the… well, I guess you’d call it a spell book.” He
said the words as if they felt as strange to say as they were to hear.
A spell book?
As in magic spells?
Like the Salem witch trials magic? Like hypnosis and psychics and superstition?
It would make sense—and align with the rest of her research on the origin of American
belief systems. In fact, it might be the perfect conclusion to her term paper.
Part of her wanted to run to the apartment and forget this entire conversation. But she
couldn’t. The thing that burned inside her—the power that had demanded she leave behind
the stifling smallness of her life and move to the big city of Durham—the same force that
compelled her to return to the rare books library day after day—it had taken hold again.
Lila Jane knew better than anyone that once the questions took root in her mind, there
was no power on Earth that could stop her from finding the answers.
She exhaled, a ripple of excitement expanding through her chest. “And this book? You still
have it?” She found herself closing the distance between them. It was more than just the pull
of a strangely exotic-looking college boy with a slow Southern drawl; she was on the hunt now,
and it wasn’t for a date. It was for meaning—and not just the kind that could be found by
translating a few Latin words.
Freedom in Light? It’s not just a prayer. It means something bigger than that. It has to—I
can feel it.
“You mean the spell book, if that’s what you want to call it? Of course. Right here in my
bag.” He nodded—perhaps a bit smugly, she thought.
It felt like a dare, and she took it. Though, deep down, Lila Jane Evers knew she was the
one daring herself.
“Well then.” She tossed her head defiantly.
“Well what?” He looked amused.
“Well then, what are you waiting for, Mr. I-Carry-Around-Nineteenth-Century-Texts-in-My-
Bag? Let’s go take a look.”
He paused for a long moment, as if he hadn’t been expecting her response. “Are you sure,
Jane? I’m sorry… I mean, Lila Jane?”
“You can call me Jane. My grandfather does.” She shrugged. “So does my best friend.” She
didn’t feel like Lila Jane; she felt like Jane, the heroine in a story yet to be written. Lila Jane
lived in small towns and did small things. Jane went off with strange classmates in the night to
study mysterious parchments—even spells, if that was what they were.
“And I’ve never been more sure about anything in my entire life,” she added.
It was the truth.
As sure as Lila Jane had been that someone was following her, now she was equally sure
about the rightness of the boy in front of her.
Of him, and what he could show her.
Suddenly, she wanted to know everything he knew—about the Lux and about anything else
he might have seen from his seat in the back of the class.
He drew a pale bare hand out of his jacket pocket. “I’m Macon. Macon Ravenwood.”
She took his hand. It was freezing cold, colder than the night around them, which made no
sense, considering it had been in his pocket. “What a grand old Southern name you have,
Macon.”
He didn’t smile. “You have no idea. But there’s an all-night coffee shop a few blocks from
here, if you have a craving for… research. We could call a cab.”
“Let’s walk. It’s not that cold, and I’ve never been afraid of the dark.”
He raised an eyebrow.
When she finally pulled her tingling hand away from his, she slid it back into her giant
pocket with all the other things that couldn’t be explained, and followed Macon into the
darkness of Chapel Drive.
Twenty minutes later, in a vinyl booth at the back of a nameless diner, Lila Jane Evers and
Macon Ravenwood argued about history and syntax and Latin and Greek, over an old book
and nearly as ancient coffee.
They didn’t notice the time until the sun came up again—but by then, even the least
perceptive busboy could tell it was too late for both of them.
Lila Jane Evers and Macon Ravenwood were in love.
III. Brotherly Love

Just after dawn, Macon made his way to the Outer Door behind the Perkins Library, which
led into the Caster Tunnels—the magical labyrinth of passageways that ran below the Mortal
world. He quickly double-checked the surrounding area, but as usual, there was no one.
Mortals rarely wandered around behind the library at this hour and even when they did, they
never paid attention to what was happening around them.
Except Lila Jane Evers, he thought with a smile. She was easily the smartest and most
perceptive Mortal girl he’d ever met. And the most beautiful.
Finally speaking to her, after watching her from the back of the lecture hall more times
than he could count, had thrown him off-balance. Jane was no ordinary girl.
But she’s still a Mortal, which makes her off-limits.
Macon slipped through the Doorwell and stepped down into the shadows until his foot
found the invisible stair below, as he knew it would. He needed the peace and quiet of his
study in the Tunnels to think, and to continue his research. It was the reason he chose to walk
instead of Traveling. Materializing whenever and wherever he wanted to go was one of the
few perks of being an Incubus—at least if you were born into the Ravenwood line of Blood
Incubuses. Maybe one day it would become less disturbing, but Macon found that difficult to
imagine.
How long can I avoid it? How much time did he have until the Transition, when his powers
and his thirst would be at their strongest?
Months? Weeks?
As he navigated through the damp stone that encased every inch of this particular Tunnel
like a tomb, Macon let his mind drift back to Jane. He smiled at the thought of her navy
peacoat, which was clearly meant for a man, and the way she seemed indifferent to her own
beauty. Intelligence was a different matter.
She actually cares about ideas and opinions. About what people think and why they think
it—unlike everyone else in my life.
Macon was still smiling when he opened the door to his study, until he noticed an
unexpected—and uninvited—visitor.
“Look who finally decided to show up.” His brother Hunting lounged in Macon’s favorite
armchair, with his black boots propped up on Macon’s claw-foot desk. Hunting picked up one
of the books from the stack on the desk. “The Incubus and Succubus: Tracing the Roots of
Bloodlust?” He tossed the rare book on the floor. “I can’t believe you read this crap. No
wonder you’re depressed all the time.”
Macon crossed the room and shoved Hunting’s boots off his desk. “I don’t remember
inviting you over or asking for your book recommendations—assuming you’ve learned to read
by now.”
Hunting pointed a finger at his brother and winked, his pupil-less black eyes reflecting
Macon’s image back at him. “Nice one. You can insult me later. I need a favor.”
Macon wasn’t interested in doing the sorts of favors that appealed to Hunting. “What is it
this time? Grand larceny? Armed robbery? Am I getting warm?”
“Nothing quite that fun. Sorry to disappoint you.” Hunting rose and walked over to the
mirror above Macon’s sink and admired his long canines. He had already Transitioned,
becoming the newest addition to the Ravenwood family of Blood Incubuses. “I need a
wingman. Found myself a pretty little Kappa Kappa Gamma debutante. Young and stupid, just
the way I like ’em.”
Rage pulsed through Macon’s veins. “How many Mortal women have you bled dry since
you Transitioned, Hunting? You tore your own girlfriend apart, for God’s sake.” It was an
image burned in Macon’s memory—the sight of what was left of his brother’s Mortal
girlfriend, a girl Hunting had loved as much as he was capable of loving anyone. Now Hunting
was the equivalent of a supernatural serial killer, stalking Mortal girls with no mercy.
Hunting yawned. “Does that mean you aren’t coming?”
“Get out.” Macon pointed at the door. “I’m ashamed to share your blood.”
“But you do, whether you like it or not.” Hunting’s eyes narrowed. “And Silas is tired of
waiting for you to come around.” They rarely referred to Silas as their father, maybe because
he never acted like one.
Hunting glanced at the door and laughed. “Only a pathetic excuse for an Incubus would
think I’d use the door.”
“I don’t care how you go, as long as you leave.”
“It’s funny,” Hunting said, looking his brother in the eye. “After all of Silas’ lectures about
how I shouldn’t date a Mortal girl, you fall for one.”
Macon froze.
How does he know about Jane already?
Before Macon had a chance to ask him, Hunting dematerialized—disappearing into thin
air, as if he’d never been there at all.
Macon dropped into his empty armchair, where his brother had been sitting only a
moment ago. His head ached—along with his heart.
 I’ll give it one week. Just to see what could’ve been—who I could’ve been. A glimpse of the
life I’ll never know.
That’s not too much to ask, is it?
Macon already knew the answer, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it.
IV. Confessions

“Wake up. It’s almost noon. Where have you been? I haven’t seen you all week.” Marian
walked into Lila’s room before she was fully awake. Marian was brushing her teeth, still
wearing her silk kimono.
“Maybe I met someone,” Lila said, her head still under the pillow. “And my whole life has
changed in the last six days”—her words were muffled—“and you were too busy working and
going to class to notice.”
“Maybe you met someone?” Marian almost choked on her toothbrush. “You?”
Lila sat up on her futon. “He’s just helping me with a project. A prayer book or spell book
or something. It’s not clear yet.”
“You mean, like, Salem stuff? Witch trials?” A strange expression passed over Marian’s
face. “For your ABS paper?”
“Exactly. He solved the translation problem I’ve been stuck on for a week. He’s an
intellectual genius, and different from anyone I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
“Intellectual genius? Hello? I’m right here.” Marian pretended to pout. “Okay, fine. What
project, which hypothetical someone, and when can I administer the appropriate best friend
interrogation?”
Lila smiled. “The Lux. And you’ll meet him. Today, in fact. For lunch. Plenty of time to give
your approval before our first kiss, which sadly has yet to happen.” She flopped back on the
futon with a groan.
Marian held up her toothbrush, laughing. “So if you aren’t kissing, what are the two of you
doing? Just going over old documents together?”
Lila covered her eyes, embarrassed. “Sometimes our shoulders touch.”
“What time is lunch? I have a shift at two.”
“Crap.” Lila sat up again, checking her mother-of-pearl watch. “Crap. Crap. Crap. I said
we’d meet him in twenty minutes.” She was out of bed in a flash, which meant something she
wasn’t ready to admit.
This was serious.

Lila Jane saw Macon across the crowded tables at Q Shack, which was crawling with Duke
students. She and Marian were already at a table, and she elbowed her best friend, who had
her back to the door. “He’s here. Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” Marian said, giving her a strange look. “But if you want to talk about
who’s nervous—”
“It’s just that he’s so—him. And you’re so you. And I want you both to like each other so
much.”
Marian smiled, grabbing Lila Jane by the arm. “Relax. If you like him, I’m going to like
him.”
“Promise?” Lila Jane reached around Marian’s neck and squeezed her in a best-friends-
forever sort of way.
“Promise,” Marian said. “With the small caveat that if you choke me to death, I won’t get
to meet him at all.”
Lila Jane smiled and relaxed just as Macon made it to the table. “There you are,” he said,
taking off his coat. “Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find the place. I’m afraid I don’t actually get out
all that—”
Marian looked up at Macon towering over them, and he abruptly stopped talking and
taking off his coat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, then turned to Lila Jane without waiting for his
answer. “Is this some kind of a joke?”
“No.” He took a step back. “Of course not.”
“Wait—you know each other?” Lila Jane pushed back her chair, scraping the floor. She
shook her head. “Please tell me what’s going on.”
“Yes, please do,” Marian said, her eyes fixed on Macon.
“I can explain,” Macon said. “It’s nothing. Harmless. A flirtation.”
“A what?” Lila Jane looked like he’d slapped her. “What are you saying?”
Marian shook her head. “No, Macon—what are you thinking?” She stood up, grabbing Lila
Jane by the arm. “Listen to me. You have to stay away from him. Macon Ravenwood is the kind
of trouble you know nothing about.”
“Clearly,” Lila Jane said, yanking her arm away. “But it seems like you know all about him.
You two had a thing, didn’t you? And now it’s awkward, and I’m in the middle of all of it?” She
grabbed her bag. “Don’t let a harmless flirtation like me get in the way.”
“Jane,” Macon began. “Please.”
“It’s not what you think,” Marian said.
But Lila Jane Evers was out the door before either of them could tell her anything worse
than what she already thought she knew.

Marian finally found Lila Jane, on the top floor, in the most remote stacks at Perkins,
surrounded by a pile of ancient, open books. She had a finger in one book to hold her place, a
glove in a second, and a sock in another.
This was her safe space.
Marian sat on the floor next to her best friend and leaned against the wall of books behind
them. “Memoirs? What is it with you and memoirs?”
Lila Jane shrugged, closing the book in her lap. “It must be daunting to work out your own
story. Lord knows, I never have. And this week wasn’t a step in the right direction.” She shook
her head. “I’m so sorry, Mare.”
“As if a stupid boy could ever come between us, Janie,” Marian said. She reached for Lila
Jane’s hand, taking it in her own. “But speaking of our own stories… I think it’s time I told you
mine.”
“If it’s about Macon Ravenwood, I don’t want to know.” Lila Jane sounded brokenhearted.
“I should have known from the name. He sounds like the villain in one of the soap operas my
mom watches.”
Marian stifled a laugh. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“Men are terrible, and relationships are doomed from the start. I should know better by
now. Everything is so much more complicated than it seems. You can’t tell me anything I don’t
already know.”
“I’m willing to bet I can,” Marian said calmly. “And Macon Ravenwood isn’t the half of it.”
She squeezed Lila Jane’s hand. “But to be clear, we never dated. And after you hear what I
have to say, I think you’ll understand why.”
Lila Jane froze. “What’s wrong with him? He’s a criminal, right? Or a serial womanizer? A
total creep?”
Marian rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Did you look at the guy? He’s not exactly a frat boy.”
“Thank God.” Lila Jane relaxed. “So what did you want to tell me?”
“Right.” Marian took a breath, staring at her friend as if she couldn’t find the words.
“Right.”
Lila Jane would forever remember the sad look in her best friend’s eyes, in that last
moment of her blissful ignorance.
“Janie. When I said you couldn’t go out with Macon Ravenwood, it wasn’t because he’s a
horrible person. It’s because, well… he’s not a person at all.”
“Excuse me?”
“Macon Ravenwood’s not a Mortal.”
Lila Jane stared at her. What else could she do when her best friend had obviously lost her
mind?
Marian stood and held out her hand. “I’ll explain everything, I promise. But first I have to
take you to the library.”
“We—we’re in the library,” Lila Jane stammered.
“A different kind of library.” Marian took Lila’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on.”
V. The Lunae Libri

Lila Jane stood in the stone Doorwell.
Behind her, worn, uneven rock steps led down into the Tunnels beneath Perkins. In front
of her was an ancient door, weathered and grooved by time and the elements.
She shook her head. “How is this here? And how is it possible that I never knew this
existed?”
“The great work must inevitably be obscure.” Marian shrugged.
“Except to the very few,” Lila Jane finished. “Don’t you use Henry Miller on me, Mare. I’m
the person who pointed you to Tropic of Cancer.” It was true, and Marian smiled, pushing
open the door.
“What the hell?”
The stone stairway twisted into another, and then another, and then a fourth, until Lila
Jane could no longer track the difference between where they’d come from and where they
were going.
“What is this place?” Lila Jane stopped on the step behind Marian.
“I told you,” Marian said. “My library.”
 “This is not just a library,” Lila Jane said.
“No. It’s just not your idea of a library,” Marian said. “It’s not much farther now. Come
on.”
Marian quickened her pace, and Lila Jane hurried to keep up. As she moved, she tried
counting the flickering torches mounted on the mossy, damp walls, but it became impossible
after the first few minutes, and she felt like the Tunnel would never end.
Then suddenly it did.
Marian pushed with two hands on a heavy stone door, murmuring a few words of Latin
that Lila Jane couldn’t make out. The rock disappeared beneath her touch. “What just—?”
“Save that thought, Janie,” Marian said, taking her friend by both shoulders. “Because
things are about to get even crazier.” She pushed Lila Jane through the door. The moment Lila
Jane stepped into the room, she knew Marian was right. They entered what appeared to be the
central hub of the space, a large vaulted chamber that seemed utterly without end. Lila Jane
stopped, stunned. “It’s incredible.” She reached out and touched the closest row of books, but
Marian grabbed her arm.
“And powerful. Only a Caster can touch these books.”
“A what?” Lila Jane stared at her friend. “As in—”
“As in spell caster,” Marian said slowly.
Lila Jane stared wide-eyed at the surrounding stacks, speechless.
Marian tried again. “As in a race of gifted Supernaturals who can and always have been
able to bend Mortal existence to their will—in different ways, depending on their different
powers.”
Lila Jane put her hand down on the counter behind her for support—but accidentally
touched the edge of a stray piece of parchment, sending sparks flying. “Ouch.”
“Careful—” Marian grabbed her friend by the arm.
“Macon’s spell book,” Lila Jane finally said. “It really is a spell book.” She shook her
burning fingers. “I didn’t believe it.”
“A book of Casts? Possibly. Yes.” Marian hesitated. “I know there’s a lot to explain, so just
trust me on this. If you touch anything in this library, you’ll burn your hands off.”
“Mare. You forget who you’re talking to.” Lila Jane pulled her beloved white archival
gloves from her bag and waved them at her friend. “Not a problem.”
Marian smiled. “Of course.”
Lila Jane pulled out the nearest book, holding it carefully in her gloved fingers. “Castere
Compoundes of Alchemies Elementaus? Is this for real?”
“It depends,” Marian said, looking over Lila’s shoulder.
“On what?”
“On whether or not you really want to know the answer to that question.” Marian looked
at Lila Jane. “Or the answer to exactly what sort of Supernatural your beloved Macon
Ravenwood is.”
“So there are different sorts, now?” Lila Jane looked overwhelmed.
Marian kept going. “Or the answer to where I go when I’m not at home at night.”
Lila Jane nodded, keeping her expression remarkably composed. “What if I do?”
Marian looked at her. “Are you sure? Because there’s no going back.”
Lila Jane nodded, moving down the aisle. The stacks appeared to spread in radial spokes,
branching through the massive underground cavern in every possible direction. “It seems to
me we came to the no-going-back place the moment you made the stone door abracadabra
away.” She pulled out a thick parchment scroll, examining it every bit as thoroughly as if she
were in the rare books reading room.
Marian shook her head. “These aren’t small decisions, Janie. These are the moments that
shape a life, even a destiny. The first time I saw this place, I couldn’t eat for a week.
Everything I’d ever understood about the world was fundamentally and forever changed.”
Lila Jane replaced the scroll and looked up at her friend. “But that’s the thing you don’t
understand, Mare. My world already changed. It changed the day I met Macon Ravenwood.
And if this is a part of his world, then last Sunday it became a part of mine.”
Marian pulled her friend into a fierce hug.
Lila Jane stared at the world beyond Marian’s pale cashmere shoulder, considering the
words she’d just spoken.
They seemed real, but it was hard to tell what was real anymore. Especially now, when her
entire world had just turned upside down.
“I think I’m going to love him, Mare.” The words sounded odd as they echoed through the
vast cavern, as if they surprised even her.
“Then we should talk.” Macon stepped out of the shadows and held out his hand.
Slowly, Lila Jane let go of her friend and took it. He pulled her hand to his lips, tenderly
kissing her white-gloved fingers with a smile. As he did, the look in his eyes said more than he
could otherwise ever possibly hope to express.
Lila Jane understood it all.
I’ve broken him, she thought. I’ve never seen him look happier and sadder, all at the same
time.
“What’s this? A kiss on the hand? Surely you can do better than that, my dear Macon
Ravenwood,” Lila Jane said, smiling back at him.
“Come here, Jane.”
Marian disappeared before the gloves even came off.

By the time Lila Jane crept back home, it was the middle of the night, though every light in
the apartment was on.
Marian sat up on her futon. “Do you have any idea what time it is? I was worried sick
about you.” Her futon was full of books, and Lila Jane flopped on top of them.
“You’re the one who left me in the Caster Library,” she said.
“Would you have preferred I stay?” Marian raised an eyebrow.
Lila Jane smiled. “Of course not.” She crawled next to her friend, curling against the warm
pile of comforters like a kitten.
Marian sighed. “I worked for hours, thinking you two would come up for air and I’d catch
you on the way out. But apparently neither one of you requires oxygen.”
“I didn’t realize how much time had passed.”
“You have a watch.”
“I lost it.”
“It’s on your wrist,” Marian said, looking at the delicate mother-of-pearl face.
Lila Jane slid off the silvery band. “Now it’s not.” She sat up. “Here, I want you to have it,
Mare. I don’t want any more time to pass. I want it to always and only be tonight.”
“Janie,” Marian said. The word was a warning.
But Lila Jane shook her head. “Don’t. Just let me do this. I have to. I know my life could be
headed into a great big disaster. But it’s my disaster.” She smiled. “It’s the greatest disaster of
my life.” She looked over at Marian. “Even if it’s my last.”
“Your last disaster? I think we both know that’s not likely, though appropriately
melodramatic.” Marian let Jane strap the watch onto her wrist.
“I’m in love.”
“Clearly.”
“But he’s an Incubus. Practically a mythological creature. Except, of course, he’s real.”
Lila Jane shook her head in disbelief. “Which makes no sense whatsoever.”
“He’s a Dark creature, Lila.”
“Lila? I’m suddenly Lila now?” Lila Jane looked taken aback.
“Janie. I don’t know what Macon told you, but his very nature is darkness. He can’t be
with you. You’re a Mortal. You are literally anathema to each other. Fire and water. Madness
and reason. Death and life.”
“Who’s being dramatic now?”
“I want you to be happy, Janie.”
“I know, Mare.”
“But you can’t. Not like this. Not with him.”
“You’re the one who showed me the way into his world through Caster Tunnels, and now
you just expect to take it all away again?”
“I wanted you to know the truth, and I wanted you to decide for yourself.”
“So let me. But give me more than a few hours to try to understand what’s going on. My
whole concept of the universe just imploded. How am I supposed to know how I feel about
things that I didn’t even know existed yesterday?”
“It’s tomorrow I’m worried about,” Marian said. “You don’t know what Macon can be like.
You don’t know him at all—him or his world. You don’t know anything.”
“I don’t. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? How can I walk away when I don’t know what I’m
leaving?” Lila Jane’s voice rose.
Marian bristled. “How can you stay when you don’t know what you’re risking?”
Lila Jane didn’t answer.
They lay next to each other in silence. There was nothing more to say.
VI. Sins of the Father

Macon spent every spare moment with Lila Jane. Whether it was researching side by side
in the Caster Library, walking her to class, or stealing a kiss, he wanted every single memory
burned into his dark heart.
Because she won’t be mine forever, he thought as he walked through the Tunnels to meet
the one person he despised more than anyone else in the world—his own father.
Silas Ravenwood.
Macon was surprised it had taken almost a week for Silas to summon him. Maybe
Hunting’s killing spree had distracted him, and his brother hadn’t gotten around to ratting
him out until now.
Maybe Silas had been on a killing spree of his own. Or maybe my father wanted me to fall
deeper in love with Jane before he crushes my dream of a life with her.
Torture and torment were Silas’ specialties. Macon’s father savored the misery of an
innocent even more than Hunting savored draining the blood from an entire dressing room of
chorus girls.
Macon opened the Outer Door that led into the study inside Ravenwood Manor. The house
was located in Gatlin, South Carolina, a nothing of a town his family had mistakenly founded
on their way to somewhere better. But no one had lived here for quite some time. White sheets
covered the furniture, and dust glittered in the air. He wasn’t surprised this place was
deserted.
Something moved in the corner of the room, underneath the sheet covering a grand piano.
A black dog—which looked more wolf than dog—raised its head.
So my father found himself a Caster dog. Of course.
Macon almost laughed. Silas hated animals. But he loved to spy—the unrivaled perk of
watching the world through two pairs of eyes—your own and a Caster animal’s.
“You can come out now, Father,” Macon called.
Delicate smoke rings from Silas’ Barbadian cigar entered the room before he did. “As if I’d
bother to hide from you.” Dressed in an expensive check dress shirt, rolled at the sleeves, and
perfectly tailored Italian slacks, his father looked more like a member of the Mafia than a Dark
creature from a race of Supernaturals.
Silas flicked his ash on the floor next to the wolf-dog, and the beast growled.
“It’s funny to see you with a dog,” Macon said. “Since you always refused to let us have
one growing up.”
Silas walked over to the stone fireplace. “Pets make children sentimental and weak.
Comfort is for prey—and they pay people like me for it with their lives. I did you a favor.” He
pointed at the animal across the room with the end of his cigar. “Lucifer is knocked up. If you
want a puppy so bad, I’ll give you one.”
Macon shook his head. “Her name is Lucifer? A little on the nose for you, isn’t it?”
Silas shrugged. “Her namesake was misunderstood. Lucifer was just trying to make things
better for his kind.”
“You aren’t actually defending the Devil, are you?” Macon held up his hand. “Wait. What
am I saying? He’s probably your mentor.”
Silas walked the perimeter of the living room, opening drawers and pocketing anything
that appeared the least bit interesting. “From what I hear, you’re the one in need of a mentor.”
Here it comes.
“Your brother told me you’ve been following around a Mortal girl at school,” Silas
continued. “And here I thought Hunting was the stalker in the family.”
Macon flinched involuntarily.
“Are you going through the Transition? Is that it? I respect a man who chooses his meals
carefully.” Silas smiled. “Especially the pretty ones.”
Macon kept his face unreadable.
Don’t react. Don’t give him that. Don’t let him see how close he’s struck.
He wasn’t about to admit the truth to his father—that he was the prey.
That he craved blood, even dreamed about it. But not Jane’s.
Never Jane’s.
She could stalk me, he thought. She has perfect control of me, at least for now. His father
would never understand that, not even in an Incubus’ lifetime. He took a breath.
“She isn’t a meal, Silas,” Macon said carefully. “But she also isn’t someone you need to
worry about.” He felt sick talking about Jane this way, but he had to convince his father that
she wasn’t important.
Silas crossed the room, stopping only a foot away from Macon. “You don’t tell me what to
worry about, boy. You have embarrassed me—and this family—for the last time.” He jabbed his
finger against Macon’s chest. “Incubuses are at the top of the supernatural hierarchy—kings
of the supernatural world. It would be shameful enough if you dragged a Caster home, but
chasing a Mortal girl? You’d be better off with Lucifer.”
Macon didn’t mention that Silas had married not one but two Mortal women and fathered
children with both of them. His racist manifesto—whether or not he adhered to it himself—had
been handed down directly from Silas’ great-great-grandfather Abraham Ravenwood, who
believed every word of it.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Macon lied. “Trust me.”
Silas shoved him against the wall. “I don’t trust you. Not a single bit. And if I wasn’t sure
you were going to kill that piece of Mortal trash the minute the Transition hits, I would’ve
killed her already.” Silas lit a fresh cigar and winked at Macon. “Then again, there’s still time.”
His father’s laughter was the last sound Macon heard when Silas Ravenwood
dematerialized, leaving only the scent of his cigar lingering in the empty room.
Macon’s heart jumped in his chest. His father’s words weren’t a warning—they were a
promise. Silas would make sure Lila Jane ended up dead one way or another. But what
terrified Macon most was that Silas was confident Macon would end up killing her first.
What if it’s true, and I lose control? I can’t let anything happen to Jane. But how can I
protect her from my father and Hunting? From myself?
Macon knew the answer.
He’d known it all along, but knowing it and doing it felt like they were a thousand miles
apart.
I have to let her go.

Macon had always wondered if a Ravenwood Blood Incubus like him really had a heart—
the kind capable of real love.
But now he knew he did, because it was breaking, one tiny crack at a time.
He held on to the pain. He savored it, the way Silas savored a kill. The pain was real. The
pain was his. The pain would never end.
And soon it will be all I have left of her.
“Janie,” he said again. “Please.”
Lila Jane clung desperately to him, her face buried in his chest. The branches of a huge
oak reached down around them, creating the impression they were alone instead of a few
yards away from clusters of Duke’s ivy-covered buildings.
He cradled her tearstained face gently in his hands. “Do you think this is easy for me? I
love you, Jane, and I know I’ll never feel this way about anyone again. But we don’t have a
choice. You knew there would come a time when we would have to say good-bye.”
Lila Jane lifted her chin, resolute. “There are always choices, Macon.”
“Not in this situation. Not a choice that wouldn’t put you in danger.”
“But your mother said there might be a way. What about the prophecy?”
Macon slammed his palm against the tree, frustrated. “Dammit, Jane. That’s an old wives’
tale. There’s no way it doesn’t end with you dead.”
“So we can’t be together physically—I don’t care about that. We can still be together.
That’s all that matters.”
Macon pulled away, his face twisted in pain. “Once I change, I’ll be dangerous, a Blood
Incubus. They thirst for blood, and my father says I will be one of them like he is and his
father before him. Like all the men in my family, as far back as my great-great-great-
grandfather Abraham.”
“Abraham, the one who believed the greatest sin imaginable was for a Supernatural to fall
in love with a Mortal—to taint the supernatural bloodlines? And you can’t trust your father. He
feels the same way. He wants to keep us apart and make you creep around in the Tunnels like
your brother. Like a monster.”
“It’s too late. I can already feel the Transformation. I stay up all night listening to the
thoughts of Mortals, hungering. Soon I’ll be hungering for more than their thoughts. Already,
it feels like my body can’t hold what’s inside me, as if the beast might literally burst free.”
Lila Jane turned away, her eyes welling up with tears again. But Macon wasn’t going to let
her ignore him this time. He loved her. And because he loved her, he had to make her
understand why they couldn’t be together. “Even standing here, the light is beginning to burn
through my skin. I can feel the heat of the sun with such intensity, all the time now. I’m
changing already, and it will only get worse.”
Lila Jane buried her face in her hands, sobbing. “You’re saying this to scare me, because
you don’t want to find a way.”
Macon grabbed Lila Jane’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You’re right. I am trying
to scare you. Do you know what my brother did to his Mortal girlfriend after the
Transformation?” Macon paused. “He ripped her apart.”
Without warning, Macon’s head jerked back, his golden-yellow eyes shining around
strange black pupils, like the eclipse of twin suns. He turned his head away from Jane. It was
the first sign of a Dark Caster.
The eyes of the monster that he was.
Then Macon Ravenwood did the only thing he could do.
He ran.
 VII. The Arclight

Leaving Lila Jane was the hardest thing Macon had ever done. Still, it wasn’t enough. Silas
was unpredictable and Hunting was sadistic. Macon’s breaking up with the girl he loved might
not be enough for them.
If they go after Jane, she won’t be able to protect herself.
But Silas and Hunting weren’t the only threats. One day soon, he could be dangerous, too.
The only thing he cared about now was finding a way to keep Lila Jane safe—and there
was only one person who could help him.
A powerful Diviner, a Caster capable of predicting the future. A woman with voodoo roots,
who lived in the heart of Louisiana and knew the heart of an Incubus.
His mother.
And she will understand.
Macon’s parents had fallen deeply in love when Silas was away at college in New Orleans.
And like Macon, his father had fallen in love with his mother before the Transformation.
Before Abraham had convinced Silas a relationship with a Light Caster was an abomination
against their kind.
It had taken Abraham years to tear Macon’s mother and father apart. By that time, he and
Hunting and Leah were born. His mother had been forced to use her powers as a Diviner to
escape Silas’ rage and his uncontrollable urge to feed. She had fled to New Orleans with Leah.
Silas would never have let her take his sons.
His mother was the only one Macon could turn to now. The only one who would
understand that he had fallen in love with a Mortal. The greatest act of sacrilege against his
kind, the Blood Incubus.
The Demon Soldier.
Macon hadn’t told his mother he was coming, but she would be expecting him. He climbed
up from the Tunnels into the sweet heat of a New Orleans summer night. Fireflies blinked in
the darkness, and the smell of magnolias was overpowering. She was waiting for him on the
porch, in an old wooden rocking chair, tatting lace. It had been a long time.
“Mamma, I need your help.”
She put down her needle and hoop, rising from the chair. “I know. Everything’s ready,
cher.”
There was only one thing powerful enough to stop an Incubus, aside from one of its own
kind.
An Arclight.
They were considered medieval devices, weapons created to control and imprison the
most powerful of the Harmers, the Incubus. Macon had never seen one. There were very few
left, and they were almost impossible to find.
But his mother had one, and he needed it.
Macon followed her into the kitchen. His mother opened a small cabinet that served as an
altar to the spirits. She unwrapped a small wooden box, with Niadic script, the ancient Caster
language, around the perimeter:
The One who seeks it shall find it.
The house of the Unholy.
The key to the Truth.
“Your father gave this to me before the Transformation. It was passed down in the
Ravenwood family for generations. Your granddaddy claimed it belonged to Grandfather
Abraham himself, and I believe it did. It’s marked by his hatred and bigotry.”
She opened the box, revealing the ebony sphere. Macon could feel the energy, even
without touching it—the grisly possibility of an eternity within its glistening walls.
“Macon, you must understand. Once an Incubus is trapped inside the Arclight, there is no
way out from within. You must be released. If you give this to someone, you have to be sure
with all certainty that you can trust them, because you will be putting more than your life in
their hands. You will be giving them a thousand lives; that’s what an eternity would feel like in
there.”
She held the box higher so he could see it, as if he could imagine the confines just by
looking at it.
“I understand, Mamma. I can trust Jane. She’s the most honest and principled person I’ve
ever met, and she loves me. Despite what I am.”
Arelia touched Macon’s cheek. “There is nothing wrong with who you are, cher. If there
were, it would be my fault. I doomed you to this fate.”
Macon bent down and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Mamma. None of this is your fault.
It’s his.”
His father. Silas Ravenwood.
 Possibly a greater threat to Jane than he was, a slave to the doctrine of the first
Ravenwood Blood Incubus. Abraham.
“It’s not his fault, Macon. You don’t know what your grandfather was like. How he bullied
your father into believing his twisted brand of superiority—that Mortals were beneath Casters
and Incubuses alike, simply a source of blood to satisfy their lust. Your father was
indoctrinated, like his father before him.”
Macon didn’t care. He had stopped feeling sorry for his father long ago, stopped
wondering what it was about Silas his mother could have loved.
“Tell me how to use it.” Macon reached out tentatively. “Can I touch it?”
“Yes. The person who touches you with it must have intent, and even then it’s harmless
without the Carmen Defixionis.”
His mother removed a small pouch—a gris-gris bag, the strongest protection voodoo could
offer—from the door of the cellar and disappeared down the dark stairs. When she returned,
she carried something wrapped in a dusty piece of burlap. She laid it on the table and
unwrapped it.
The Responsum.
It was written in Niadic. Literally translated, it meant “the Answer.”
It contained all the laws that governed his kind.
It was the oldest of books. There were only a few copies in the world. His mother turned
the brittle pages carefully, until she reached the right one.
“Carcer.”
The Prison.
The sketch of the Arclight looked exactly like the one resting in the velvet-lined box,
sitting on his mother’s kitchen table next to her uneaten étouffée.
“How does it work?”
“It’s rather simple. A person need only touch the Arclight and the Incubus they wish to
imprison at the same moment and speak the Carmen Defixionis. The Arclight will do the rest.”
“Is the Carmen Defixionis in the book?”
“No, it’s much too powerful to be trusted to the written word. You must learn the Carmen
from someone who knows it, and commit it to memory.” She lowered her voice as if she was
afraid someone might be listening. Then she whispered the words that could condemn him to
an eternity of misery.
“Comprehende, Liga, Cruci Fige.”
Capture, Cage, and Crucify.
Arelia closed the lid of the box and handed it to Macon. “Be careful. In the Arc there is
power, and in the power there is Night.”
Macon kissed her forehead. “I promise.”
He turned to leave, but his mother’s voice called him back. “You’ll need this. Give it to her,
too—if she’s really someone you trust.” She scrawled several lines on a piece of parchment.
“What’s this?”
“The only key to that door.” She gestured to the box tucked under his arm. “The only way
someone can ever get you back out.”

It was the thing Macon wanted least and most—to see Lila Jane one last time. It had been
weeks since he’d seen her, unless you counted the nights he had followed her home from the
library, watching her from a distance, wishing he could touch her.
Knowing he couldn’t.
Not now, not when the Transformation was so close. But she was here in his subterranean
chamber now, even though he’d told her to stay away. “Jane, you have to get out of here. It’s
not safe.”
She walked slowly across the room to where he was standing. “Don’t you understand? I
can’t stay away.”
“I know.” He drew her into him and kissed her, one last time.
Macon took something out of a small box in the back of his closet. He put the object in Lila
Jane’s hand, closing her fingers around it. It was round and smooth, a perfect sphere. He
closed his hand around hers, his voice grave. “I can’t protect you after the Transformation, not
when the one thing that poses the greatest threat to your safety is me.” Macon looked down at
their hands, gently cradling the object he had hidden so carefully. “If something happens, and
you’re in danger… use this.”
Lila Jane opened her hand. The sphere was black and opalescent, like a pearl. But as she
watched, the sphere began to change and glow. She could feel the buzz of tiny vibrations
emanating from it. “What is it?”
Macon stepped back, as if he didn’t want to touch the orb now that it had come to life.
“It’s an Arclight.”
 “What is it for?”
“If the time comes when I become a danger to you, you’ll be defenseless. There’s no way
you will be able to kill me or hurt me. Only another Incubus can do that.”
Lila Jane’s eyes clouded over. Her voice was a whisper. “I could never hurt you.”
Macon reached out and touched her face tenderly. “I know, but even if you wanted to, it
would be impossible. A Mortal cannot kill an Incubus. That’s why you need the Arclight. It’s
the only thing that can contain my kind. The only way you would be able to stop me if—”
“What do you mean, contain?”
Macon turned away. “It’s like a cage, Jane. The only cage that can hold us.”
Lila Jane looked down at the dark orb glowing in her palm. Now that she knew what it
was, it felt like it was burning a hole in her hand and her heart. She dropped it on his desk,
and it rolled across the tabletop, its glow fading to black. “You think I’m going to imprison you
in that thing like an animal?”
“I’ll be worse than an animal.”
Tears ran down Lila Jane’s face and over her lips. She grabbed Macon’s arm, forcing him
to face her. “How long would you be in there?”
“Most likely, forever.”
She shook her head. “I won’t do it. I would never condemn you to that.”
It looked as if tears were welling up in Macon’s eyes, even though Jane knew it was
impossible. He had no tears to shed, yet she swore she could see them glistening. “If
something happened to you, if I hurt you, you would be condemning me to a fate, an eternity,
far worse than anything I would find in here.” Macon picked up the Arclight and held it up
between them. “If the time comes and you have to use it, you have to promise me you will.”
Lila Jane choked back her tears, her voice shaking. “I don’t know if I—”
Macon rested his forehead against hers. “Promise me, Janie. If you love me, promise me.”
Lila Jane buried her face in his cool neck. She took a deep breath. “I promise.”

It happened within weeks of the last time he spoke to her.
Macon felt it immediately when his shoulder snapped—the intense pain of his bones
cracking. His skin tightened, as if it could no longer hold whatever was lurking inside him. The
breath was sucked from his lungs, like he was being crushed. His vision began to blur, and he
had the sensation he was falling, even though he could feel the rocks tearing at his flesh as his
body seized on the ground.
The Transformation.
From this moment forth, he would not be able to walk among Mortals in the daylight. The
sun would singe the flesh from his body. He wouldn’t be able to ignore the urge to feed on the
blood of Mortals. He was one of them now—another Blood Incubus in the long line of killers on
the Ravenwood Family Tree.
A predator walking among his prey, waiting to feed.
Jane—
Epilogue

“In the Light there is Dark, and in the Dark there is Light,” Lila Jane Evers translated, for
the thousandth time. She was still holding the translucent scrap of parchment, still no thicker
than onionskin, between her fingertips. “Licentia in Lux Lucis. Freedom in Light.” She looked
up at Marian. “Freedom from what?”
Lila Jane sat back in her hard wooden chair—at her customary table for one (though with
Marian’s chair now shoved up against hers)—in the rare documents reading room of the
Perkins Library, as she did every night.
Lila Jane was obsessed. At least she was aware of it.
And Marian doesn’t point it out that often.
Lila Jane straightened one curling edge of the parchment with her white-gloved hand.
It’s all I have left of him.
She smoothed the scrap of paper in her hand. “There has to be more to it than words on a
page.”
“What’s wrong with words on a page? They’re our specialty, Lila.” Marian smiled. She
didn’t call her best friend Janie anymore.
Not even Jane.
Marian couldn’t make this easier or take away the pain; no one could do that. But she
could make sure her best friend didn’t have to face it alone.
Lila Jane took off her white gloves. “It’s not just any Cast. There has to be a reason I found
it. A reason it brought us together.” She didn’t say his name.
She couldn’t.
“In the Dark there is Light? You think that’s about the two of you?” Marian asked.
 “Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?” Lila Jane asked. “But if we were so different that we could
never be together, why didn’t it feel that way? Why did he feel like my kindred spirit? Like a
part of my soul?”
Every word was agony.
“A Ravenwood and an Evers? I wonder…” Marian shook her head. “I don’t suppose we’ll
ever know now.”
Don’t you understand? I have to.
Lila Jane looked at her friend. “I want to go back to the library, Mare. I want to know what
you know. I can’t explain it, but I feel like I’ve started down a road that has no end, and I can’t
stop now. Not even if I wanted to.”
Marian pulled off her gloves. “It’s a dangerous road, Lila.”
“Macon said you were a Keeper. I want to be like you.”
“Lila—”
“It’s my choice. You said it was always my choice,” Lila Jane said, reaching to take
Marian’s hand in her own.
“It is.”
“I feel like it’s more than that, Mare. I feel like it’s my destiny.” Lila Jane squeezed her
best friend’s hand. “And you know I’ve never been afraid of the dark.”
She looked at Marian with huge, heavy eyes.
They were the kind of eyes that wanted to see the truth, and nothing less.

Thirty years later and hundreds of miles away, Lila Evers Wate’s only son stared up at
Marian with those same eyes.
He clutched Marian’s hand, with Lila Jane’s mother-of-pearl watch strapped to her slender
wrist. Listening as intently as his mother always had.
Marian couldn’t find her voice.
He’s so much like his mother. But he’s more than just Lila Jane’s son. He’s her destiny
now. She closed her eyes. You’re not done yet, Janie, but you’re close. I can feel the road’s
end. Just a bit farther, I promise.
It was a promise Marian could make because she knew something no one else in Gatlin
County did.
Destiny wasn’t finished with this boy and his mother.
Not yet, Janie.
Not yet.

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About the Authors

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl are longtime friends and coauthors of the #1 New York
Times bestselling Beautiful Creatures novels. The first book in the series, Beautiful Creatures,
is now a major motion picture. In addition to writing together, they have written solo series:
The Legion Series by Kami Garcia includes the instant New York Times bestseller and Bram
Stoker Award nominee Unbreakable and Unmarked; and the Icons series by Margaret Stohl
includes Icons, which is currently in development as a feature film, and Idols. Kami and
Margaret invite you to visit them online at kamigarcia.com and margaret-stohl.com.
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Contents

Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Authors’ Note
Dedication
Epigraph
I. Sunday in the Gatlin County Library
II. Sunday in the Rare Books Library
III. Brotherly Love
IV. Confessions
V. The Lunae Libri
VI. Sins of the Father
VII. The Arclight
Epilogue
About the Authors
Don’t stop reading now!
Copyright

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or
persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Kami Garcia, LLC, and Margaret Stohl, Inc.
Cover design by Maggie Edkins
Cover photograph © Andrew Davis / Trevillion Images
Cover © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning,
uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the
publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to
use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be
obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support
of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
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Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the
publisher.
First ebook edition: March 2015
ISBN 978-0-316-30314-9
E3